Menu

Read this book!

Another book advertisement. – This one can be read online though as well as downloaded for free.

Critique of Creativity, Precarity, Subjectivity and Resistance in the ‘Creative Industries’ – an analogy edited by Gerald Raunig, Gene Ray & Ulf Wuggenig, published by MayFlyBooks in 2011.

By critique of creativity is meant critique of the imperative of creativity so present in our society today. Raunig speaks of a renaissance of ‘the creatives’ – he writes:

“In the hype of the ‘creative class’ and the high flights of the digital bohemians, the renaissance of ‘the creatives’ is visibly enacted. On the resonant conceptual ground of creativity, new social functions are unfolding – or are projected.”

Also among the contributors we find political theorist Isabell Lorey – lecturer at last year’s edition of Works at Work. In the text Virtuosos of Freedom: On the Implosion of Political Virtuosity and Productive Labour, she elaborates on the concepts of structural precarity and self-precarity so relevant in relation to artistic labour and life.

In short, the book is great. It makes one reflect on the possibility of overproduction of art – and more over, it makes one consider how far one is willing to go in realising an art practice, under what conditions, and for what purpose?